Probaly will phase out the 80GB and replace with a 30 GB, that way they can bring another "price drop" and get rid of that pesky BC forever

lol

ssj12: "Sony doesnt want to make an extreme promise of being able to support a massive amount of PS2 games..."

Sony PR

"[The PS3 will have] almost perfect backwards compatibility. There will be some exceptions, but we believe those will be even less than we saw from PSOne to PS2.

"Backwards compatibility, as you know from PlayStation One and PlayStation 2, is a core value of what we believe we should offer. And access to the library of content people have created, bought for themselves, and accumulated over the years is necessary to create a format. PlayStation is a format meaning that it transcends many devices -- PSOne, PS2, and now PS3."

ssj12: "Rumble is being brought back because it was asked for by fans on the PS Blog."

Sony PR - then

"We have no plans to do so in the standard controller that ships with PlayStation 3. I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it's not the next-generation feature. I think motion sensitivity is. And we don't see the need to do that. Having said that, there will be specific game function controllers, potentially like steering wheels that do include vibration or feedback function—not from us but from third parties."

Sony PR - now 

"We look forward to exploring with Immersion exciting new ways to bring the largest and best range of gameplay experiences to our customers," said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group Chief Operating Officer, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We are very excited about our new partnership with Immersion and the potential for new and innovative products incorporating their technologies."

Well judging by the SKU, it looks like it might be a white color ps3 of the 40gb?

That's the only thing that would make sense.

Sony doesn't want more than 2 SKUs in production, I doubt this new one has new specs, more like a new color 99% sure.

oh, @yourmother, at least they didn't take it out of the 80gb ps3? Obviously they want to give it to you, but you'll have to cough up the extra % $, they're not gonna hand you a PS2 GPU for free.

gg, stop being greedy - either a cheap ps3 or an expensive one with everything.

srsly, should a car dealer give you all the features like car navi? no, pay for it.

 All they have to do is phase out the 80GB

I mean the 20 is gone, and the 60 is going, if they get rid of the 80 and release a new model than they will still have two models 

Why would they get rid of the 80gb? It would make no sense.  I thought it was already confirmed that they were dropping the price of the 80gb to $499 after the $399 40gb release? 

You will start seeing Sony Playstation Sales Experts in each store soon...

If you throw enough mud against a wall eventually it will stick!

That's right. No argument there: You can still have it if you want it, but you need to fork over the extra cash. Again, no disagreements.

ssj12 specifically said Sony doesn't want to "make an extreme promise" yet that's what Sony did, then retracted on that statement. Joystiq says it pretty well (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/06/why-the-ps3s-lack-of-backwards-compatibility-is-upsetting/):

"So what's the big deal - why does the backwards compatibility matter? The previously-mentioned "core value" quote from Phil Harrison best sums it up, that with the PS3 we are buying into the PlayStation brand and all that it entails. Gamers who pick up the 40GB model have lost access to over 8,000 titles - many of them the best gaming has to offer. The elephant in the room is that Sony could ween out backwards compatibility from all its available models over all regions. Should you care? We think so.

Update: With some help from Engadget Japan's Ittousai, we have found diagrams indicating the switch from Emotion Engine + Graphic Synthesizer chip to just a graphics synthesizer chip, implying the software emulation was partially hardware-supported (as noted by many commenters). If that's the case, then, the ability to download emulation software later may not be possible. We don't want to spread misinformation, so for further clarification we have contacted Sony for a definitive answer.

Regardless, the loss of backwards compatibility marks a paradigm shift in the PlayStation branding. If you buy a PS3, your connection to the previous generation - one that saw Sony reign mightily in the realm of console gaming - is severed. Does the cost of branding outweigh the financial benefit of losing a graphics chip?"

This flies directly against this earlier claim by Sony PR:

"Backwards compatibility, as you know from PlayStation One and PlayStation 2, is a core value of what we believe we should offer. And access to the library of content people have created, bought for themselves, and accumulated over the years is necessary to create a format. PlayStation is a format meaning that it transcends many devices -- PSOne, PS2, and now PS3."

I don't know about you, but the contradiction is clear as Evian to me.

Isn't this coming from the company that originally said multiple sku's lead to confusion? Oh, how things have changed